Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: At a time when the Hollywood movie star landscape is being made over with new faces, Kick-Ass star Aaron Johnson is cementing his place in this new order. He has been offered two lead roles in high profile films with strong scripts and A-list directors, in parts that have been pursued by all the young guys. I believe he’ll do both films.

I’m told that Johnson has been offered one of the two male leads in Savages, the Oliver Stone-directed drama about two best friend pot growers who share a gorgeous lady and a huge problem: their pot is so good that a Mexican drug cartel has kidnapped their gal and will kill her if the growers don’t go to work for the cartel. That pic, which has a script by Shane Salerno and Don Winslow (who wrote the novel on which the movie is based) will shoot in June. Jennifer Lawrence is Stone’s first choice to play O, the kidnapped free spirited sexpot, but her commitment to The Hunger Games (Deadline told you last Friday that was happening) has made her participation uncertain at the moment.

Johnson has also been offered the romantic lead role alongside Keira Knightley in Anna Karenina, the adaptation of the Tolstoy classic tragic love story that has a script by Tom Stoppard and will be directed by Atonement helmer Joe Wright for Working Title. That film will likely shoot in the fall, so Johnson ought to be able to do both films. He also played the young John Lennon in Nowhere Boy.